Olympus
by queenpearl
Summary: We all know how badass Banning was but what was going on behind the scenes at Andrews...? Rated T to be safe! Sequel London will be up next month!
1. Part 1

July 5, 2013

"So how was your fourth?" "The usual." Angel sat side by side with her lead C-130 named Michael or just Mike. The 747 took a sip off her tea. She couldn't stand coffee. It made her jittery. "Always nice when its quiet isn't it?" He asked and she chuckled. "A pity that's about to change. I was just beginning to enjoy my vacation." She said. If only she knew how right she was...

The C-130 was painted in Air Force decals but she was anything but. Born in Korea she was stolen as a baby and brought across the DMZ. She knew nothing but her North Korean masters and had served for decades in the US Air Force undercover before working her way to Mike's unit at Andrews. Now she would fulfill her destiny. She noticed the F-15s off her wing as she approached the Potomac. _"Attention unknown aircraft this is the fighter off your starboard wing. Request you redirect to vector 280 immediately."_ He made the call 2 more times. That was one thing she loved about Americans. They preferred to shoot later. She preferred it that way as well but her destiny and theirs no longer converged and now they were enemies. They needed to be treated as such. A quick burst of anti-aircraft fire took care of the fighters but she heard one call for help before he crashed. She had only minutes before more came after her from Andrews. She turned sharply, her nose aimed straight for the iconic white building in the center of DC.

The men on the rooftop, though brave, never stood a chance. They all fell under her relentless cannons. An F-15 fired a missile but her angel flares did their jobs and the missile was rendered useless. The fighter himself was shot down microseconds later. His partner or perhaps his mate, screaming revenge, let loose with her own volley and this time her flares weren't fast enough. The C-130 cried out as her tail was struck. Trailing smoke and with her number 1 engine on fire, part of her wing burned off, she banked hard, scraping paint with the Washington Monument before crashing in the south lawn of the White House. The ground enveloped her in darkness and she went silently, at peace for her own destiny was fulfilled.


	2. Part 2

It took mere minutes for word of the attack to reach Angel's ears. Mere seconds later, the Commander of the US Air Force was issuing orders from the ground at Andrews Air Force base. The cargo planes were sent to collect all the medical supplies they could to drop over GW hospital which would be overrun by the influx of injured by now. The fighter jets were loaded up with all the fuel and ammo they could carry and sent out on patrol to ensure no more aircraft violated the airspace. Angel also sent up 2 Nightwatchers to circle the White House. The third sat next to her on the tarmac.

Angel would describe her relationship with her father as military vibes only. There was no personal relationship between the two. Echo had mated with her mother under Boeing's authority. There was never any love to be lost to start with. A part of Angel wished there was. At least she'd have a shoulder to cry on if things turned for the worst. Even so, just having him here brought a sense of comfort to the blue and white jumbo.

Her radio crackled. _"Have you confirmed the president in secure?"_ She asked. _"He's in the bunker ma'am but it looks to be a hostage situation. Shall I find a way to break in ma'am?" "Negative. That bunker is nuclear shielded. There's no way to get inside without killing the president. Continue surveillance." "Understood ma'am."_ Angel sighed. "Looks like an inside job. President's trapped in the bunker." She told Echo. "We'll get him out ma'am." He assured. His tone was flat and calm as ever. Not too unlike her own although inside she was a tornado of emotions. She was terrified at how easily someone managed to get past American defenses. She had been a fervent believer in her own military. To eliminate a threat, secure the president and set up a perimeter in 15 minutes seemed impressive on paper. Until she discovered the hard way that there was someone out there who could overcome all her defenses in 13. Another part of her was angry. Angry at the terrorists who had done things. Fuck, she would blow them beyond hell before this was over. But she was also angry at herself. Angel would not consider herself insecure. She always had complete confidence in her abilities and those in the people around her. But now she wasn't so sure anymore. She wasn't even sure if she was giving the right orders. The terrorists had managed to do what had seemed impossible, what if this was only the beginning. What if they knew what orders she was giving and had planned accordingly. What if her orders caused more unnecessary deaths... It was a dangerous train of thought to be on at a time like this but Angel couldn't find it in her to stop it.

Echo looked at his Commander with concern as she bowed her head. "How could this happen?" She whispered quietly, almost to herself. The look in her eyes was that of despair and a rage pointed squarely inward. Like looking in a mirror. She was starting to second guess herself. Question every order she gave. That was not something they could afford to deal with at a time like this. It was not something Echo could risk dealing with. He gave her a nudge. That and the beep of an incoming transmission brought Angel's head back up. She narrowed her eyes at the monitor as it displayed a face distinctly Korean. _"Ah, Angel. The President's pet. I've already spoken with the Pentagon but you are who I've really wanted to talk to."_ He said. "Who are you?" She asked, drawing herself up. Echo moved away though the Nightwatch had his eyes fixed on the television screen. They were blue, like Angel's and currently narrowed. He had his teeth gritted together, just barely hiding a snarl. His wings twitched as he felt the missile cylos hidden within get ready to deploy. _"The man who controls the White House."_ The Korean replied. "What do you want?" _"I want all your air assets out of the DMZ by daybreak tomorrow or I will execute every hostage in this room. That includes the President, the Vice President, the Chief of Staff, and the Secretary of Defense."_ Angel did her best to hide her fear. But it wasn't their impending deaths that had her worried. This terrorist had the three people required to set off America's nuclear defense system. Designed to abort a missile in mid-flight, Cerberus could be used in a terrorist attack to detonate the missiles while still in the cylos. Equaling the destruction equivalent to a nuclear strike. The Korean seemed to know what she was thinking. _"Ah yes, you are well aware of who I hold hostage Angel. Comply with my commands, and I will not release the three headed dog from his chains."_ He gave her a smile that made her blood run cold, then the transmission ended.


	3. Part 3

As soon as the transmission ended the whole hanger erupted in chaos. There were people trying to get a voice analyst to help identify the man. A psychoanalyst and a few other analysts that Angel didn't know how to pronounce let alone understand what they did. By the time things died down enough for Echo to move, he noticed Angel wasn't beside him anymore. He looked around for the blue and white jumbo, finally spotting her in the far corner of the hanger. Once again she was firing off orders rapidly.

"Mike, get those C-130s in the air. The hospital needs those supplies." Angel ordered. The C-130 nodded. "Alpha, contact the FAA and have them shut down Dulles airport to civilian traffic, we need to keep the airspace clear." "Yes ma'am." The modified F-18 made a beeline for the nearest telephone. "Brigs, I need you and your unit fueled and ready to get airborne within the hour. We're gonna have a lot of thirsty planes up there." She told the KC-135. "I'm on it ma'am." He replied. As the gaggle of aircraft around her began to decrease, Echo could see the change in her. The more orders she gave, the more tired she became. Finally he was able to make his way over to her. "Have you heard from Fox and Bravo?" She asked, referring to the other Nightwatchers currently circling DC. "Bravo's making his way to a tanker. Fox is remaining on station until he comes back." He replied. She nodded. "Good. We're gonna need their intel if we have any hope of getting the White House back." "Snap out of it Commander." He growled suddenly. Shocked, she snapped her head up, eyes meeting his. "Excuse me?" She asked. "You're second guessing yourself, Angel." He continued. "And I can't have that, from anyone." His eyes narrowed. "Even you." She glared and for a brief moment it was clear how much father and daughter were alike. But after a minute, Angel nodded. "You're right." She sighed. "But what if I am doing the wrong thing?" She asked. "Those terrorists were able to breach our security and take down what we had in less than 15 minutes. How can I be sure they don't have something else up their sleeves?" "You don't know." Echo replied. "But right now we need the chance to fight more than we need results. And you're the only plane who can give us that chance." She considered his words for a minute. That was another thing they shared. No matter what their state of mind, they always thought things over carefully. "Okay then." She said. "Let's theorize here. How do these men get through our defenses? They're built to be impregnable from the outside." "Then it had to be someone from the inside." Echo replied. "Okay, now it's not so much who that matters right now. Whoever it was is either dead or in the bunker and will be dead before the sun rises." She growled. "Now we just need to find a way to get inside."

"Got another call coming in. It's from the President's sat phone." A brief surge of hope filled Angel. "Put it through." She ordered. A voice, not the presidents came across the line. The man identified himself as Banning, a former secret service agent. Angel had met him several times. She knew he could be trusted. "Commander." Echo whispered beside her. "I think we've just found our way inside." Angel nodded once, in complete agreement. She opened the channel on her end. "Agent Banning you're speaking to GOAF ***** Angel Boeing." _"Ma'am."_ Banning greeted. _"These terrorists are lead by a man named Seng."_ Angel felt Echo stiffen at the name. It sounded familiar to her as well but she couldn't place it. _"They're very well trained and organized. They want the Seventh fleet and all military personnel out of the DMZ."_ "I am aware Agent Banning. Seng has already ordered me to remove my air assets from the region." _"Do not comply with his commands."_ Banning said. Angel bristled momentarily at the unexpected order but forced her control surfaces flat. "Agent Banning if you think..." She began. _"I know I can't order you but I'm asking you, General. You_ _cannot_ _give this man what he wants. He won't stop here."_ "If you give a mouse a cookie..." Angel sighed. _"He's gonna want a glass of milk. Precisely."_ Banning finished. "You have 30 minutes Banning, then I'm giving the order." _"Understood ma'am. The Pentagon's sending reinforcements to assist me."_ For some reason this information chilled Angel's soul and she couldn't remember why. But then it came to her. "Banning hold on!" She growled and raced to the nearest computer terminal. She couldn't get inside the White House but the last information received showed exactly what she feared. She returned to the screen. "Banning you have to call off those reinforcements." She growled. "The last info given from the White House before it went dark indicated that Hydra 6 was still online." Echo looked at his daughter, his own dread matching hers. _"What's Hydra 6?"_ "That's classified." The quip came out automatically before she could stop it. _"Classified my ass. Now are you gonna tell the only son of a bitch who has a chance to help you what the fuck's going on or not?"_ Angel knew she should be mad. She knew she should chew him out for his insubordination but he had balls and she was impressed. Besides, he did have a point. "It's a powerful anti-aircraft weapons system about 100 times that of Phylinx. You _have_ to call off that attack or there will be mass casualties." _"Copy. Oh..."_ Banning cut out but moments before he did Angel and everyone else in the room heard the unmistakable sound of approaching helicopters.

...

 ***** GOAF stands for General of the Air Force


	4. Part 4

Angel felt nothing but dread as she watched the live video feed. She could see the Apache helicopters, loaded with SEAL commandos fly over the fence. She saw the gunmounts on the rooftop appear and activate. She saw the tracers streak through them like they were made of paper. She watched one helicopter go down, then two, then three... She heard the order for a retreat and couldn't recall if she had given it but she swore she heard her voice through the feed on the lead Apache's radio. He repeated her order and they began to fall back. Angel was just beginning to breathe a sigh of relief when two of the helicopters made it safely back over the fence. Then all that changed. A lucky hit to his tail rotor and the lead helicopter entered his death spiral. The relief turned to dread. His voice filled her ears. _"Mayday! Mayday! I'm hit! I'm hit! I'm going down! Mayday! Mayday!"_ She was so glued to the screen she couldn't even flinch when he crashed onto the roof, his main rotors spinning him around twice before his gas tanks ignited. Only now did Angel flinch back at the flash of light that filled the screen. It suddenly felt unbearable in here. The tornado of emotions had become a hurricane and she couldn't stand it. She couldn't stand being in this hanger with all these people counting on her, depending on her. When all she had done so far was send them to their deaths.

Once outside she let her frustration show. The trees bore the brunt of her rage as she engaged in a boxing match with them. One truck blasted by engine exhaust, two trunks blown to smithereens, a third toppled over. Angel turned around to strike a forth and pulled her punch last second. The forth trunk wasn't a trunk at all. "What, are you doing here?" She hissed out. Echo shrugged. "I saw you make a run for it. Figured you needed a good vent. And trees are hardly worthy opponents." He said, getting into a fighting stance. She growled and lunged at him. He dodged nimbly to one side, giving her a light swat across the flank as he did so. Snarling she pivoted and came at him again and again he dodged. "You're mind is clouded my daughter." He said. "You can fight twice this good even when you're ill." "Do not call me that!" She snarled. "You have no right to call me that! You never did before. You never even _cared!"_ She slammed their heads together, pushing with all her might to gain some leverage over the male 747. Echo pushed back just enough to hold her in place though he easily could've flipped her. "Perhaps your right. I don't. But you are my child Angel and I care for you just the same." He said through a pant. Angel was strong, nearly as strong as he was and it was taking a lot of effort to keep her from gaining any ground. Thankfully, her anger and therefore her resistance faltered and she collapsed to the tarmac in front of him. He lowered himself down beside her. "You will never forgive yourself. Even when other's forgive you. War is a hard thing and in some ways it is harder on the commanders than those on the ground. For they have to live with the consequences of their choices. You were chosen to be GOAF because we knew you could live with it. It's hard. I know. I cannot claim to understand but I do know. But the Air Force needs its Commander. We need you Angel." Angel looked at him, eyes filled with tears but she hadn't let a single one drop. "That lead helicopter's name was Sanford. I knew him from my days in the Academy. He taught me how to fire my missiles." She said. "I'm sorry." Echo replied, rising to his wheels. She did the same. By the time they had turned their noses to the hanger, the tears in Angel's eyes had vanished and her gaze had hardened. "I don't care why they attacked this country. I don't care how many threats they make. By dawn, they will be dead. I will have seen these bastards to have paid for their every transgression with their own blood."


	5. Part 5

Banning had managed to reach the bunker. That was the first good news Angel had received all day. The bad news was he was too late. Kang had perished along with the president. She still recalled what that sick bastard had said to her just before he died. _"I see your Seventh Fleet is withdrawing but not your air units. You didn't give the command Angel." "I've been giving too many other commands to try and send this down the slow chain." "Too bad. Since I didn't get what I wanted. You won't get what you want. Say goodbye to your master Angel." "What do you want sir? I'll recall the forces..." "No Angel!"_ It was Asher's voice now. _"Don't you negotiate. Don't negotiate, ahh!" "Sir? Sir?!"_ Angel was angry. She was scared. She was sad. She was horrified. But most of all, she was numb. Just a cold, bone chilling feeling that spread throughout her body, seemingly paralyzing her. And she never felt a thing.

Angel got an insistent pinging on her private radio that finally snapped her out of it enough to answer. It was one that few people knew and so naturally she was curious and a bit suspicious. _"This is GOAF." "Angel, Asher is not dead."_ Angel recognized the voice as Banning's but was so surprised she completely forgot the slip in protocol. _"You have 15 seconds, go."_ She growled. _"Angel, listen to me. Kang's not going to go out without a fight. He's not that type."_ Happiness fluttered in her for a moment before she stifled it decisively. She couldn't risk getting her hopes up just yet. This wasn't over. Not by a long shot. _"If the president is still alive and so is Kang. Then they cannot leave the White House grounds." "I'm on it."_ Banning said and signed off, leaving the anxious VC-25 with nothing to do but wait.

It was an heart wrenching 10 minutes before Banning got back on the phone again. _"Kang's been taken care of but we have a bit of a problem. There's a countdown running and I don't know what it is."_ Angel feared she did. "Check the status of Cerberus, Mike." She ordered. "It's running ma'am. All three codes have been entered." "Son of a bitch!" Angel swore. It was rare for her to cuss out loud, even rarer still to be heard doing so. But Mike made no comment. He knew how warranted and how understated the vulgar was. _"Banning, that countdown is Cerberus." "And what's Cerberus?"_ Angel was tempted to give another 'I'm classified' quip but there was no time. _"Cerberus is a highly_ _highly_ _classified system. It's a fail safe for our nuclear stores. If a missile was inadvertantly launched it's Cerberus that would abort it mid-flight. But if that abortion goes off with the missile still inside the cylo..."_ She heard Banning swore this time. _"How do I turn this thing off?" "I'll talk you through it. Go to the console that says 'Mid-flight." "Got it, next?" "Hit the abort sequence button."_ She heard the computer's automated voice system say the sequence had been initiated. _"It's asking for a code. What's the code."_ Angel read it off in rapid fire, correcting herself after the Hashtag moment. It was a tense moment as the timer went below 5 seconds before it stopped at 3. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and then the cheer went up. Angel's was perhaps the loudest of all. _"Thank god. Thank god. Thank god."_ Was all she could think. After a single night that felt like a year, the attack was over.

It was business as usual at Andrews within minutes. The Nightwatchers circling the White House were called back though the airspace remained close and fighters still patrolled the perimeter. It would be quite a while before Dulles was opened again. Mike and Echo both went to greet their respective units as they landed and began their own debriefings. Now that the crisis was over, Angel had little to do. She gave a few more orders to tell the special units to stand down, then made her way out onto the tarmac. She wobbled a bit on her wheels. She was more tired than she thought. Then again, so was everyone. Quite a few C-130s had fallen asleep during the attempted briefing before their CO saw the futility of his action and gave up. Mike was currently sleeping next to his unit, propellers twitching. The Nightwatchers were beginning to settle down at the far end of the tarmac, not far from Angel's hanger. As she prepared to go inside, Echo rose from his place beside them and approached her. "All's well I take it?" He asked. She nodded. "The rest of our units are on their way back to base. The cleanup is beginning as we speak but I've left that in the hands of the FBI and NTSB. They can take that from here." She replied. "You did well." He praised her. "I think, no I _know_ I couldn't have done it without you. My focus isn't what it should have been. I'll need to work on that." "I know you'll do fine in your training. You always have." "I was wrong you know." She said, looking at him. "You do care. And I was a selfish fool to think otherwise." "Angel, my sweet Angel." He pressed his muzzle to hers. "Your mother would be so proud of you. As am I." "Thank you." She whispered, unsure of what else to say. He nodded and started to head back to his unit. "Echo?" She called after him. He paused, turning back to her. "Yes, Commander?" "Angel." She corrected, giving him permission to call her by name. "Could I stay with you tonight? I just- I don't feel like sleeping in there alone." He smiled warmly at her. "Of course."

The two taxied back to Echo's unit. Angel settled next to Foxtrot while Echo laid down on the outside. She shifted over to him, curling up in a tight ball at his side, their wings interlocking. She was asleep before she'd even finished settling. Gently, so as not to disturb her, Echo brushed his muzzle along the back of her hump. "Sleep well, my beautiful daughter."

The warmth along Foxtrot side was unfamiliar but not unwelcome. Still, as the sun rose his curiosity won out. He opened his eyes to see his commander with the GOAF curled up at his side. Angel rested peacefully at Echo's side with the older jumbo's head resting across her hump, his own body curled around hers protectively. The pair sleeping day away as only a father and daughter could.


End file.
